Northern California and the Redwoods

Friday, April 10

Day 3

Woke up to a wonderful European breakfast served by Gisela and Fritz with breads, cheeses, jams, meats, fruit, an egg, juice and delicious coffee. How wonderful! I am telling you this Affordable Travel Club is amazing. If you are intrigued check out their website at affordabletravelclub.com. In case you are wondering, we pay $20.00 for bed and breakfast, delightful conversation, and tips on places to see and things to do. Just to put that in perspective, it costs $35.00 for a campsite for a tent in a state park in California with no bed and no breakfast!

We drove Highway 199 on the Redwood Highway toward Crescent City and went on Howland Hill Road to Stout Grove which is a beautiful grove of Pacific Coast Redwoods. We walked around in awe of their size and reminisced about when we were here 9 years ago with youngest son Nick and best friend Erik.

 After that we followed the advice of our ATC friends from Bend and walked to Boy Scout Trail to the end which is the Fern Waterfall, 6 miles round trip The trees were so enormous and magnificent and beautiful ferns and triliums carpeted the forest floor. The trail was muddy and some parts blocked by fallen trees but we persisted.

Banana slugs eat everything except Redwood seeds and saplings

Don't you hate it when a tree falls across your trail!

Headed south on highway 101 with ocean views and came across a field of elk casually grazing with tourists taking photos. They seemed completely comfortable with the humans and happy to be in this field of grass eating away. We were going to camp but heard there was a 90% chance of rain so decided for a cheap hotel in Eureka, CA. It has a nice little historic district and harbor. Quiet evening of listening to the Mariners get shelled and Jodi typing away. 2 days until baseball.